I2O LEGITIMACY VERSUS INDUSTRIALISM
a considerable part in the movements of the time for providing
working-class schools. Universal compulsory education did not
come in England till 1870, but it would not have come then
but for the Philosophical Radicals.
The opposition to popular education at that time was amaz-
ingly strong, even in quarters in which it might not have been
expected. In the year 1807, a Bill to provide elementary schools
throughout England was introduced by Whitbread. It was de-
feated in the Lords, at the instance of Eldon and the Archbishop
of Canterbury. This is quite in order, but it is curious to find
that it was vehemently opposed by the President of the Royal
Society, However specious in theory the project might be (so he
said), of giving education to the labouring classes of the poor, it
would in effect be found to be prejudicial to their morals and
happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life, in-
stead of making them good servants in agriculture, and other
laborious employments to which their rank in society had des-
tined them; instead of teaching them subordination, it would
render them fractious and refractory, as was evident in the
manufacturing counties; it would enable them to read seditious
pamphlets, vicious books, and publications against Christianity;
it would render them insolent to their superiors; and in a few
years the result would be that the legislature would find it
necessary to direct the strong arm of power towards them, and
to furnish the executive magistrate with much more vigorous
laws than were now in force.51
In spite of these grave warnings, the nonconformists pro-
ceeded to found schools, and the Church, for fear of losing its
hold on the young, was compelled to follow suit. In the non-
conformist movement the Benthamites were active.
The reader may remember that Dr Folliott, as quoted in the
motto to this section, objected to sixpenny tracts on hydro-
statics, the Steam Intellect Society, and the learned friend.
Whether sixpenny tracts on hydrostatics existed, I doubt; but
the learned friend was Brougham, and the Steam Intellect
Society was the *Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,*
of which Brougham was chairman and Lord John Russell vice-
chairman, Brougham, if not a complete Benthamite, was very
closely allied with those who were; James Mill, according to his
son, *was the good genius by the side of Brougham in most of
what he did for the public, either on education, law reform, or
1 Hammond, Town Labcw&r (1932 ed.), p. 57.